Residency slots trends

[Shiz77]

Texas Groups Work to Expand Medical Residency Slots in Austin - News digest - Building Human Capital newsroom - Building Human Capital - RWJF

Cost will be 100 million, private funding perhaps?

[Shiz77]

No problem. Florida is facing a massive shortage as well

State of Florida facing shortage of residency programs | tallahassee.com | Tallahassee Democrat

[gumby]

You think this will do the trick? I honestly haven't read through it so I was hoping you could give me the synopsis if you have.

H.R.2251: Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2009 - U.S. Congress - OpenCongress

[Shiz77]

Short answer, I don't know. Long answer:

Like many things in politics, what happens is hidden behind the scenes and we have to draw inferences based on the sparse bits of knowledge available to us, even in this day and age.

A lot of what happens with regards to that bill almost completely depends on the health care reform proposals. If health care reform passes, expect a modest growth in residency slots, almost all in Primary care and it will not match the no. of student increases. If health care reform does not pass, then I have a feeling this bill will get more support. It already has bipartisan support but is deemed too 'expensive'.

I have read two reports stating that we will be drastically short of physicians, for example even if we were to increase our total PGY1 slots to 32000, it would only fill the shortage by 43%. Thus NPS and PAs cannot be the solution, there has to be an initiative to actually increase residency slots. Redistribution also won't do much. Also there was an article in the American Health Medical Education newsletter about how this lack of residency slot increase will be bad for US MDs since many rely on primary care as backups, but since a lot of FMGs are signing pre matches they won't have backups anymore and might have to lose a year. There is a lot of lobbying from the AMA and AACOM (especially these guys, since they are creating almost 5000 DOs for 2500 of their own AOA slots), COGME (council of Graduate medical education) etc, but noone is really listening. Some richer states like Texas are starting to push for their own initiatives.

The problem is we have economists pushing policy instead of actual physicians and there are a LOT of competing interests. Some people want more physicians, some people want to push out IMGs/FMGs, some people want more power to NPs, some people want to drastically expand the green card/H1B visa program to get in more FMGs. As I asked a PD on student doctor, he basically said 'it's all politics'. Unfortunately the health of the nation suffers now and will be exacerbated in a couple of decades.

We will have a better idea on this bill once this reform initiative is solved. Until then expect states like Cali, Texas, NY and other rich states to start creating their own GME increments and other strong entities like the VA to slightly increase slots.

[Ubuntu]

great post...agreed....I talked to a personal friend who is a PD last week and he said essentiall the same...right now it is all political and we are all pretty much along for the ride...no need to worry about something that is out of your hands...just handle your buisness and make your own spot

[gumby]

Thanks Shiz... I know you are probably the most well read on this topic on VMD. I've placed phone calls, sent emails to my congressman, but without much of a response other than "he's looking into it." Its frustrating.

[Shiz77]

It is very very frustrating. As a Canadian I can tell you that doctor shortages are horrible horrible things. And the very fact that training doctors takes almost a decade, the inaction being taken at the moment is astounding. I guess you can't expect more from politicians aka glorified prom kings/queens.

[Shiz77]

Another state is taking its own initiative to add more residency slots, although I have not found the exact no.s.

Strategic Goal Three - Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

[Shiz77]

Joint Match Consideration
AOA President's Blog » Requesting Your Input on MDs in OGME Programs

They are considering a joint match for DOs/MDs and taking in comments at the moment. Every year 1000 AOA seats are left empty and after their scarmble around 600 are left open. Please do send your comments to the email listed on the site.

[Shiz77]

VA Announces GME Enhancement for AY 2010-2011 (April 17, 2009)

[rokshana]

funny how they seem to think they are the same as an LCME US grad...like the US senior is going to look at a AOA family,peds, or IM spot...they can have there pick of ACGME spots...

maybe the fed gov't should reallocate all those unfilled AOA spots to the ACGME and make them allopathic residency spots...then maybe the DOs will want them!